WAFD enters its fiscal Q3 earnings report on July 17 with the stock outpacing both its own analyst targets and its regional bank peers — a setup that puts the burden squarely on the print to justify the move.
The stock closed at $39.32 on July 16, up 7.5% over the past month and roughly 4% on the week. That already puts it above the consensus mean price target of $37.75. Peers have rallied in sympathy — CPF, ABCB, HOPE, and FNB all added 3–5% on the week — but WAFD's advance has been slightly steeper, suggesting some stock-specific optimism is baked in. Options positioning doesn't show unusual hedging pressure: the put/call ratio of 0.35 is almost exactly in line with its 20-day average, and the z-score is near zero, indicating investors are not paying up for downside protection ahead of the release.
The short-selling picture is relaxed, which removes one potential wildcard. Short interest has fallen 8% over the past week to 4.1% of the free float — a meaningful decline that points to shorts trimming into the rally rather than pressing the thesis. Borrow availability is extremely loose at over 1,260% of short interest, with cost to borrow running at just 0.51%. Despite a 24% rise in borrow cost over the week, the absolute level remains negligible and carries no squeeze implications. The ORTEX short score has also drifted lower over the past two weeks, from around 44.5 to 43.0, consistent with reduced bearish conviction.
The analyst community remains largely neutral, with coverage anchored at market perform or neutral ratings. After the April earnings print — which saw WAFD rally 8.3% on the day — Keefe Bruyette & Woods and Piper Sandler both raised targets to $38 and $36 respectively, though neither upgraded the rating. With the stock now trading through those revised targets, the Street has not pre-emptively reset expectations higher ahead of today. The bull case centres on continued net interest margin expansion — NIM widened 10 basis points sequentially last quarter to 2.55% — and the repricing opportunity from $3.4 billion in maturing time deposits. Bears point to profitability that remains below peer averages (ROA of 77 basis points, ROTCE of 9.6%) and a loan growth target that was cut from 4% to just 0.5% for the full year. The price-to-book has expanded to just above 1x on the back of the recent rally, narrowing the valuation cushion that had previously supported the name.
With the stock already through consensus price targets and the past two prints delivering positive surprises — a 3.4% move in Q2 and 8.3% in Q1 — today's report is less about whether WaFd can beat and more about whether the margin trajectory and deposit cost story hold at a level that warrants a premium to the Street's current estimate of fair value.
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